Dame Patience Goodluck plans dragging EFCC to court for freezing her account with $5m

FORMER president Dr Goodluck Jonathan's wife Dame Patience Goodluck plans to drag the federal government to court for freezing her Skype Bank account in which she has $5m which she has been asked to account for.

 

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officials traced the money to Dame Goodluck's account, which she claimed she earned. They subsequently froze the account, pending how she explains where the money came from the account and Dame Jonathan has in turn taken the EFCC to court to get its action reversed.

 

Professor Itse Sagay, the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, has said with the fresh admission by Patience Jonathan that she owns the $5m, means the anti-graft agency has the right to probe her. He added that if the former first lady is claiming that she owns the money then she must explain how she earned it.

 

With the discovery of the latest amount in the former first lady’s Skye Bank account, the total the EFCC has traced to her so far adds up to $20m. In addition, the EFCC has also traced four company accounts to Waripamowei Dudafa, Dr Jonathan's special adviser on domestic affairs, with a balance of $15m.

 

Subsequently, the EFCC has charged Mr Dudafa and the four companies with money laundering and frozen their accounts. They include Pluto Property and Investment Company, Seagate Property Development and Investment Company, Trans Ocean Property and Investment Company and Globus Integrated Service.

 

One EFCC source said: “While we were investigating Dudafa, we traced the four companies to him. The companies have domiciliary accounts at Skye Bank with a balance of about $15m, so, we obtained a court order and froze the accounts.

 

“We then traced the directors of the companies who then denied ownership of the accounts. It was later that we were informed that the accounts belonged to Patience Jonathan and that she is the sole signatory to the accounts and was given a special card which she used in making withdrawals across the world."

 

“He added that they wondered why the accounts were not opened in her name if she had nothing to hide. According to the EFCC spokesman, they wondered where a person, who has never held a government position, got the money from.

 

Professor Sagay added that the act establishing the EFCC gave the anti-graft agency the power to investigate anybody who is seen to have more wealth than he ought to have. He said he wondered how Dame Patience Jonathan, who was a civil servant and never held any government position, could have billions in her bank accounts.